Needs more than a gimmick to rise above its superficial content. Look elsewhere.
A reverse history of watershed inventions, from smartphone to scratch plow.
Headed by a series of perfunctory invitations to think about what life would have been like before the arrival of modern (or any) conveniences, Gifford harks back in irregular and often overlapping chunks of time to a standard-issue array of technological breakthroughs. Though he does give African American inventor Granville T. Woods a nod and occasionally challenges received narratives by, for instance, crediting both Eli Whitney and Catherine Green with the invention of the cotton gin and Frenchman Honoré Blanc (rather than Whitney) for interchangeable gun parts, nearly all the figures he names worked in the U.K., or at least Europe, until he reaches the ancient Chinese invention of the compass. Wilson follows suit, mixing stiff-looking individual portraits of pale- and eventually olive-skinned inventors with larger views of racially diverse groups or crowds in, mostly, period European settings. Her depictions of a gory pre-anesthesia surgery and toilets through the ages are amusing, but along with medieval scribes laboring over pre-illuminated manuscripts, the nonfunctional versions of a printing press, catapult, and early cannon on display show a low priority for technical accuracy. The author closes with a glittering promise that new techno-wonders are on the way; a timeline that cuts off in 2008 sends a different message.
Needs more than a gimmick to rise above its superficial content. Look elsewhere. (glossary, index) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7112-4990-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: QEB Publishing
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere.
This book is buzzing with trivia.
Follow a swarm of bees as they leave a beekeeper’s apiary in search of a new home. As the scout bees traverse the fields, readers are provided with a potpourri of facts and statements about bees. The information is scattered—much like the scout bees—and as a result, both the nominal plot and informational content are tissue-thin. There are some interesting facts throughout the book, but many pieces of trivia are too, well trivial, to prove useful. For example, as the bees travel, readers learn that “onion flowers are round and fluffy” and “fennel is a plant that is used in cooking.” Other facts are oversimplified and as a result are not accurate. For example, monofloral honey is defined as “made by bees who visit just one kind of flower” with no acknowledgment of the fact that bees may range widely, and swarm activity is described as a springtime event, when it can also occur in summer and early fall. The information in the book, such as species identification and measurement units, is directed toward British readers. The flat, thin-lined artwork does little to enhance the story, but an “I spy” game challenging readers to find a specific bee throughout is amusing.
Friends of these pollinators will be best served elsewhere. (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-500-65265-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts.
From a Caldecott and Sibert honoree, an invitation to take a mind-expanding journey from the surface of our planet to the furthest reaches of the observable cosmos.
Though Chin’s assumption that we are even capable of understanding the scope of the universe is quixotic at best, he does effectively lead viewers on a journey that captures a sense of its scale. Following the model of Kees Boeke’s classic Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps (1957), he starts with four 8-year-old sky watchers of average height (and different racial presentations). They peer into a telescope and then are comically startled by the sudden arrival of an ostrich that is twice as tall…and then a giraffe that is over twice as tall as that…and going onward and upward, with ellipses at each page turn connecting the stages, past our atmosphere and solar system to the cosmic web of galactic superclusters. As he goes, precisely drawn earthly figures and features in the expansive illustrations give way to ever smaller celestial bodies and finally to glimmering swirls of distant lights against gulfs of deep black before ultimately returning to his starting place. A closing recap adds smaller images and additional details. Accompanying the spare narrative, valuable side notes supply specific lengths or distances and define their units of measure, accurately explain astronomical phenomena, and close with the provocative observation that “the observable universe is centered on us, but we are not in the center of the entire universe.”
A stimulating outing to the furthest reaches of our knowledge, certain to inspire deep thoughts. (afterword, websites, further reading) (Informational picture book. 8-10)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-8234-4623-0
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: April 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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